Ottawa Clears Out Trucker Protests

🚚 Ottawa police removed the final ‘Freedom Convoy’ protesters from the city’s downtown area and towed their vehicles over the weekend. By Sunday evening, officials declared that all roads were clear after arresting 191 demonstrators and impounding 57 vehicles.

• Canadian PM Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act earlier in the week, giving police the authority to declare the blockades illegal, tow away trucks, arrest the drivers, suspend their licenses, and freeze their bank accounts.
• In all, officials said they froze 206 financial products (including bank and corporate accounts), requested that virtual currency exchangers block transactions to-and-from 253 bitcoin addresses, and froze a payment processing account valued at $3.8 million. It’s unclear what will happen to the money.
• The 24-day protest in the country’s capital city initially targeted a vaccine-or-quarantine mandate for truckers crossing the US-Canada border, but later broadened into a widespread critique of Covid restrictions and Trudeau's policies.
• Canadian truckers also blocked travel across the Ambassador bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario to Detroit, MI, for a week until a Canadian court ordered them to disperse. The bridge’s closure cost the auto industry alone ~$300 million.

🇨🇦 Looking ahead... Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said the emergency powers he invoked last week are still needed for the next few days, because the "situation is still fragile".

+Zoom out: Other anti-government protests cropped up across Canada over the weekend, including hundreds of demonstrators who gathered in British Columbia.

Some Covid restrictions in Ontario – where Ottawa is located – and other provinces have been lifted in recent weeks due to high vaccination rates, decreasing cases and decreasing hospitalizations.

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